Upgrading Advice Needed

Playboy

Hi all,

I had someone build me a gaming rig a couple of years ago and I want to upgrade. I dont want to spend too much and I dont know a whole lot about computer hardware so bear with me My PSU died a couple of weeks ago .. it was the thermaltake purepower 680W (W0049) so I was going to order a new one .. the toughpower 750W (W0117). I also wanted to upgrade the motherboard and processor, and maybe the RAM and GFX Card. I have a thermaltake Kandalf case with 4 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 - 400 GB Hard drives, a Pentium4 3.4 GHz Processor, a Gigabyte GA-8AENXP-D Motherboard, 4 x 512 Corsair XMS2 8000UL 1000MHz DDR2 RAM, and a Sapphire ATI X1900XT GFX Card. I run Windows XP Pro as my OS.

On the advice of a friend I ordered a new motherboard .. the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 Skt Socket 775 Motherboard iP965 and an E6700 Core 2 Duo Processor. I got them for a combined cost of £200 sterling. Now what I wanted to ask was should I upgrade the memory and GFX card if I want to run Vista and play the latest games. Do I need to 4GB Ram if I want to run Vista and game comfortabley? Does the ram all have to be exactly the same because I cant seem to find that specific ram online for sale. Is my GFX card good enough for the time being or should I be thinking about upgrading it soon? Are the parts I have already ordered, the psu, motherboard and processor good enough?

Thanks for yout time

Playboy

Bump ... anybody? Would really like some advice re the gfx and ram pls.

AlmightyCushion

I've heard a few people on here finding vista slow on 2GBs of ram so you may want to go with 4. To take full advantage of the 4GBs you'd need vista 64bit. If you want to play newer and future games on high settings you will need to upgrade the graphics card although you could leave it a while yet.

Playboy

I cant find that specific corsair xms2 ddr2 1000MHz ram anywhere .. does the ram all have to be exactly the same and if so anyone know where i can get 2GB? What kind of gfx card would you recommend for my system?

Thx

Blazer

I'd stick with your graphics card for a while yet.
They are still a good card and will play all games although not the latest at the highest settings.
Come February Nvidia+ATI will be releasing new cards so you could pick one of these up or pick up the 8800GTX which would drop in price.

Anti

i find a huge difference in vista between 2gb and 4gb of ram. You really need 4gb in vista.